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Exploring The Impact Of Unhealthy Food And Drink Marketing On Children’S Implicit And Explicit Brand Attitudes And Preferences, Rachel Elizabeth Smith

University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 2017+

Background Children live in a media-saturated environment, as the unsolicited recipients of powerful food marketing coercion. Their aptitude in digital communications, paired with their natural credulity, lack of cognitive defences and inexperience, makes children the most desirable demographic available to marketers. Marketing techniques used to promote unhealthy foods are sophisticated, persistent and influence food attitudes, preference and consumption – outcomes that are all included in a Hierarchy of Effects sequence of effects that link food promotions to individual-level weight outcomes. Childhood obesity undermines the physical, social and psychological well-being of children and is a known risk factor for adult obesity …